Obedience or love?

Is your faith a set of rules to follow or a relationship with Jesus Christ?

Pope Francis commented on John 6:24-35, when Jesus fed the crowds. They asked Jesus what it means to do "the works of God." Jesus answered, "This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent."

Jesus "wants to satisfy not only their bodies but also their souls, giving them the spiritual food that can satisfy their deeper hungers," Pope Francis said.

People thought they had to perform certain works for Jesus to perform miracles, but Jesus told them he wants a relationship with them.

"This is a common temptation: to reduce religion to just following the laws, projecting onto our relationship with God the image of the relationship between slaves and their master," he said. "Slaves must do the tasks their master has assigned in order to receive his favor."

Telling the people that doing God's work means believing in Jesus shows that "faith in Jesus allows us to do the works of God," the pope said. "If we let ourselves be engaged in this relationship of love and trust with Jesus, we will be capable of doing good works that have the perfume of the Gospel for the good and the necessities of our brothers and sisters."

Redemption

The Catechism is getting a revision on the topic of the death penalty, thanks to Pope Francis. 

Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said, "The new text, following in the footsteps of the teaching of John Paul II in 'Evangelium Vitae,' affirms that ending the life of a criminal as punishment for a crime is inadmissible because it attacks the dignity of the person, a dignity that is not lost even after having committed the most serious crimes."

The updated paragraph in part will say, "A new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption."

DID YOU KNOW?

The death penalty has become less common in the U.S., dropping every year since a peak in 1999. Thirty-one states now allow executions. Four of those states aren't currently practicing capital punishment because their governors have set a halt to executions. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have outlawed it.

Remembering Blessed Stanley